W. LACROSSE | Yale fades after 25 minutes

A hat trick by Devon Rhodes ’13 was not enough for the women’s lacrosse team as it dropped its second straight game, this time to Boston University, 12–5.

After Yale (1–6, 0–2 Ivy) and BU (4–4) were tied 4–4 three-quarters of the way through the first half, Boston University scored four unanswered goals in six minutes and never looked back. In response to losing a game they said they knew they could win, some Yale players expressed frustration after the game.

“The entire game was just terribly sloppy and, even more, so frustrating,” Rhodes said. “We didn’t lose because BU was so much more talented then us. In fact, I think we dominated the entire first half … We lost today because we beat ourselves.”

Whitney Quackenbush ’12, the goalie and recent Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week, agreed with Rhodes’ analysis. She said that the loss was particularly frustrating because the Elis didn’t play up to their potential.

Head coach Anne Phillips pointed to two key factors in their loss: draw control and ground balls. Yale struggled with the faceoffs, she said. But the team did even worse with the ground balls.

“For some reason today we could just not get a 50–50 ball,” Phillips said.

Caroline Crow ’12 also noted the poor weather during the game as factor that may have reduced the quality of play.

Although Yale had nearly as many shots as BU (22 to 27), Yale scored many fewer points. Yale got just one goal off of 10 shots.

“You have to shoot somewhere in the vicinity of 50 percent,” Phillips said. “That’s the difference in the game. We could not finish shots.”

Coach Phillips attributed the weak shooting percentage to inexperience and impatience. Once Yale started trailing, she said, players started to take more shots than they should, either from poor field positions or in too hasty of a manner.

“If we’d been more patient we would have had a better chance to score,” Phillips said.

Yale’s offense this year is young: out of seven forwards, five are underclassmen. Phillips said she hopes that the offense will develop more experience by the end of the season.

The team has had a rough season so far, losing six of its first seven games. The Bulldogs have scored 35 fewer points than their opponents this season.

Quackenbush said that against BU, when either the offense or the defense was doing well, the other was struggling: at no point was the entire team playing its best lacrosse.

Phillips said that the team is hoping to gain experience during the first half of the season, even if it may come against tough teams such as BU or No. 20 Boston College, which defeated Yale 18–4 on March 2.

“If you win games against not challenging teams you kind of artificially create a sense of confidence, but when you play the best teams it’s totally lost,” she said. “When you play the best teams early, even though we’re young, the benefit of that experience will pay off later in the season.”